


but i am not a magician

by sixtywattgloom



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Young Avengers
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:03:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixtywattgloom/pseuds/sixtywattgloom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If I called you at a normal human time, you wouldn’t sound like this, she definitely doesn’t say, because Creeper Kate is so not the reboot alias she’s looking for.</i> sometimes kate and america talk on the phone. sometimes becomes a lot of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i am not a magician

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weakinteraction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/gifts).



> okay, so! this is canon divergent in a few ways, mainly a) it assumes that, having dug up the whole masque/l.a. plotline, kate stays in l.a. so she wouldn't have found any direct links to clint, and we can assume the tracksuit bros are making their move in the future (at which point, obviously kate will return and save the day, as she does) and b) the trailer was never burned. also, this is definitely pre-ultimates america, but the magic phone idea does make an appearance. otherwise, the take off point is more or less hawkeye issue 20.
> 
> anyway, as far as the specific req goes: hopefully this sort of works! there _is_ a little teen (not that kate's an actual teen anymore, but, yk, in her heart) sappiness, though hopefully nothing that nears ott fluff, as mentioned in your request. i'm not sure where this came from, but by the time it happened there was no time for going back. feel free to yell at me for straying too far, though!!

“It’s 4:15,” answers the voice on the other end of the line. Kate feels this vague twinge of guilt—or maybe something a little closer to awareness that America could probably show up at her doorstep and punch her in the face, if she wanted.

(It seems unlikely. The punching things she usually reserves for the bad guys, and for people like Loki—if there’s anyone in any world who’s _like Loki_ , anyway; she’s pretty sure one is really all any universe is equipped to handle.)

“Right, it’s—I guess it is. It’s light out here,” Kate says. And then: “You’re back.” Because a couple weeks have passed since she picked up the phone, and Kate sort of figured she was off saving universes again. Not that, like, America in _this_ universe couldn’t decide not to pick up Kate’s 3 a.m. phone calls, but—she hasn’t, yet.

Which—could mean something. The America not hating her kind of something. (But she thinks she knows that, already.)

“Duty called,” she says. “The interdimensional ass-kicking variety.” Her voice is low, still rough with sleep, and Kate wonders how many people get to hear that. The in betweens.

 _If I called you at a normal human time, you wouldn’t sound like this,_ she definitely doesn’t say, because Creeper Kate is _so_ not the reboot alias she’s looking for. (Not that she’s looking for any, now, no matter how much of an ass Clint insists on being; it just means she’s the only Hawkeye who matters. But that’s been true for years.)

“So Earth finally called back?” Kate settles on. 

“I’m needed here,” she says.

Kate rolls her eyes— _Kate, you know that thing your holding is a phone, right?_ —and asks, “Is cryptic one of the superpowers you were born with, or was there animal sacrifice involved in that one? I’m not asking for an itinerary here, Chavez. Just a little backstory. A favorite song?”

(Even three months ago, it’s not something she would have said. Even after the unexpectedly sincere bemusement of _I’m trying to be nice_ , even (especially? She hasn’t decided) after the arch cockiness of _You’re not that straight_.

Sure, they’d been close in the way that teammates trekking across universes with only six other mostly-teenagers in order to save everyone in every universe kind of had to be.

They were close in the way that Kate knew exactly how it felt to have America’s foot smash into her ribcage, close in the way that she knew America favored her left side when she slept, close in the way that she knew four pancakes was the smallest America’s pancake breakfasts would ever run.) 

“Three thousand miles isn’t far for me, princess,” she says, like it’s supposed to be a threat.

It warms Kate from her chest to the tips of her toes. Stupidly. 

*

“It’s 2:30,” America says.

“Oh,” Kate says, like it’s something she’s just realized. Like she hasn’t said the same thing every week, like she misses the time staring up at her from her phone’s lock screen every night, like America doesn’t know any better. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So now no one sleeps?” America asks, but in spite of the scratch of her voice, she sounds almost worryingly non-threatening. She doesn’t even sound that _annoyed_.

(Maybe Kate’s the one who needs sleep. Or maybe it’s the first time in a while she’s started paying attention.)

“It’s just—I took on this new case, and I’ve hit a total dead end, and _Heather_ keeps leaving me all these voicemails about _second chances_ , like those three extra years of wisdom have made her some kind of futzing sage. Like I’m supposed to see _their_ point of view, after I found out he—he—”

“So fuck him,” America says. “Go punch some assholes in the face, delete the messages from Heather, and let him wait. You’ve got time to deal. Go hunt down your clues, Veronica Mars.”

“Veronica—you’re seen Veronica Mars?” she asks, incredulous. (A few weeks ago, America even started up an _Instagram_ account. Like Kate’s world wasn’t already spinning off its axis.) 

“Got a friend who owns it,” she says, though she still sounds a little smug.

“A friend?” Kate asks. “Or a _friend_?”

America snorts. “Goodnight.”

(She hangs up first, but not before Kate grumbles out a _goodnight_ , too.)

* 

The phone doesn’t ring. Instead, above the low beat, she hears: _go against me, then you made a mistake._

“It’s almost four,” America says, and Kate starts.

“You set a _ringback tone_ ,” Kate says, forgoing any attempts at faux-guilt in favor of accusation. But, like—America upset their routine first. With almost-7 a.m. Nicki Minaj.  She needs a little recalibration time.

“You said something about a favorite song.”

 _Oh,_ Kate thinks. And then: _oh._

She doesn’t ask if it’s a general ringback tone or not. She’s not sure if it’s because she thinks she knows, or if it’s because she really, really doesn’t want to be wrong. 

* 

“It’s three,” America says. (It’s still Nicki who blasts through her phone first. Kate breathes out a sigh of something like relief, like the answer to a question she hadn’t known she was asking. _Seriously, Kate,_ she thinks. _A grip. Get one_.) 

“Oh,” Kate says, rubbing uselessly at her too-red eyes. Honestly, she thought it was later; her curtains are pulled shut, but she can see the light that’s already begun to filter through at the corners, and she sort of feels like it’s been at least seventy-two hours since she’s gone to sleep.

(When she sleeps, she dreams. Her dad appears in most of them—sometimes one of him, sometimes forty-eight, replica bodies hung up in a garage, sometimes wearing a mask she will never quite erase.)

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she murmurs, curling her hand tighter around her phone. “This place is so screwed up. I have to use a _laundromat._ I use 70% of my budget on cat food. I’m too broke for _midnight pizza deliveries_. Lucky can barely look at me.”

“You said you were figuring your shit out. The kind you can’t punch in the face.”

“Yeah—yeah, I know, I did, it’s just—I thought it’d be less—ramen.”

“You’re being a damn superhero,” America says. “That’s what you’re doing.”

“Is that what _you’re_ doing?”

“Princess,” she says, “I’ve never done anything else.”

Behind the striking certainty, there’s something that maybe sounds a little bit like exhaustion, too.

Neither of them would ever choose a different option. But when she curls up into the couch, arms around her knees, phone pressed to her ear—this doesn’t feel like the end of the world, either.

*

“It’s 3:15,” America says, except her voice is all smooth corners, and there’s no drag to her syllables.

“You’re awake,” Kate says—after several long moments, her brain still struggling to process.

“You noticed.”

“I mean you were _already_ awake, America,” she says. “Playing at obtuse is definitely not one of your superpowers.” (Is Kate’s superpower compliments shaped like insults?)

“I was already awake,” she confirms. And then—nothing.

“At 3:15,” Kate says. Then: “ _Oh._ So you were—being awake with someone?”

“Our last date was cut a little short,” she says. “A handful of Kree with a cache full of weapons hell-bent on revenge will do that.”

Of all the places in the world she ever expected her life to end up, chatting with America about her dating life? Definitely not among them. “Well—I guess this one wasn’t.”

It sounds like a statement, but she asks it more like a question. Even through the phone, Kate can feel the _look_ America’s giving her, all raised eyebrow and skepticism and arms folded across her chest. “I guess it wasn’t,” she finally settles on. (She might have underestimated the smirking. There’s definitely a smirk in there.)

“Nice,” she says, drawing it out a little teasingly—maybe to make up for the fact that it lacks sincerity. “Is it…serious?” she adds, like it’s any of her business. Like America’s any of her business.

“Isn’t this the kind of conversation you should be texting Billy about?”

Kate mock-pouts, lies back down against the couch. “I already _know_ his relationship status. They’ve been like this _forever_. They’re gonna have the fairytale romance for the rest of their lives. It’s inspiring, but not totally news-worthy."

“So you’re planning on turning my relationship status into headlines.”

Kate rolls her eyes, scoffs. “You know what I mean.” And then, because maybe America _doesn’t_ , because maybe there are still a lot of question marks hanging between them, she adds, “No. It’s just me. Anyway, I’ve got way more cop connections out in L.A. than journalist connections.” (Granted, Caudle still glares her down whenever she makes an appearance in the station, and “get the hell out of this town” is still kind of his catch phrase, but she’s totally wearing him down. She’s got the face for it. All charm.)

After several long moments, Kate’s nearly ready to ask about the connection. _You’re not trying to fly and talk to me again, are you? I don’t think any cell phone companies had speed of sound flying in mind._ But then: “She knows how to pick a restaurant.”

Kate’s not sure what that means, if anything. But it’s more anything than she expected. “What’d you get?” Kate wonders, feeling envious. There are _way_ too many packets of ramen littered around the tiny trailer counter, especially for a superhero-slash-P.I. (With flyers!)

“Pad thai,” she says, and Kate groans. Awesome. Now she’s a broke, starving superhero-slash-P.I., surrounded by ramen, at 3:15 in the morning. At least you could count on coffee at Clint’s. _Screw that_ , she thinks, a beat too late. _Screw him._

“I actually completely hate you,” Kate says. “Maybe I’ll block your number.”

America snorts out a laugh. “Good luck, Kate,” she says. “Go to sleep.”

Her dreams aren’t nightmares.

(There’s a girl in red, white, and blue, but there’s an empty seat at her table.)

*

America texts her at 4:30 in the morning, Kate’s time.

That is: _America_ texts _her_ at 4:30 in the morning, _Kate’s_ time.

Her phone buzzes so loudly against the little table beside the pull-out couch that first she thinks there’s been some kind of explosion. She nearly falls off of it, dragging the blanket along with her.

The phone crashes forcefully off the table, its vibrations angry but quieter against the carpet. (If this is actually carpet. Kate’s not sure a carpet-looking surface thin enough to feel like the rest of the linoleum really counts.) “Where the hell is that stupid—futzing—” she mumbles, digging around with her hand.  “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little volume buttons—ah.”

She makes a grab for it, feeling altogether more like a superhero than she has in months—even in spite of the hair disaster she can feel happening on top of her head—and glances at the screen.

America. _America_? _Kate’s_ America?

Well, not—not _Kate’s_ , not anybody’s, just—a 4:30 text from America Chavez seems a lot less likely than a text from, say, the entire United States of America.

 _Give them my name,_ reads the text. _I know a guy._ Beside that is a link to a website that leads to—

A restaurant? A restaurant with a pad thai special that she could have afforded when she had credit cards at her disposal, but which now is about ten times outside her budget, and—for a brief, insane half-second, she thinks she might cry.

 _new phone who dis_ , she texts instead.

 _Would you remember if I kicked your ass into another dimension?_ comes the reply, only a minute later.

 _try me, PRINCESS,_ she texts, boldly. It’s not the three thousand miles between them; it’s not their shared allegiances or their equally shared treks through the multiverse. It’s the low scratch of a voice through a phone line, the now-familiar beat behind _can’t tell me nothing about it, your opinion is invalid_.

(Maybe a little too familiar because she’s made it the soundtrack to most of her clue-finding missions. It’s just that it was on Spotify, and Nicki’s been a good luck charm so far. Two cases down in a week. Enough for some extra cat food, at least.)

Before she can stop herself, she sends another text—this time the fist emoji combined with the American flag.

(Fifteen minutes later, there’s a lone bullseye emoji in her messages. She spends the rest of the day biting back smiles about nothing.) 

*

“Kate?” asks America through the phone, and Kate grins. Catching America off-guard? Yeah, that one’s going in a history book.

“It’s _amazing_ , alright?” she says, somewhere between bitter and elated and impressed. “I could live here and eat just this for the rest of my life. I think they even valet parked my bike? Who the hell did you scare into submission to get a free America and friends pass?”

“They’ve got it figured out,” America agrees, and it’s 6:30—6:30 _p.m._ —and America sounds awake, and kind of warm, and it’s definitely not the worst thing in the world.

“This is what crack is like,” she says, like an epiphany. “Or Hotel California. I can check out anytime I like but I can never leave?”

“I offered you a meal, not a sleepover,” America says. Kate’s not sure if she’s smiling, but she’s pretty sure she’s not _not_ -smiling.

“Come on,” Kate says, “throwing people through walls doesn’t grant sleepover privileges? What kind of intimidation campaign are you running, Chavez?”

“Guess restaurants don’t take well to wall repair,” she says, and Kate remembers a meal for six, a girl waiting outside the front door.

Retroactively, Kate joins her, delivers her a takeout food container full to the brim (it was Loki who actually offered it to her, grinning and pulling his hands dramatically back like she’d been threatening to bite him) and sits on the stoop beside her to eat.

“Superheroes and property damage kind of go hand in hand,” Kate says, moaning around another bite of her dinner. Christ. She’s just glad there’s no one there to witness this particular feast; her—her _father_ would chide her manners this evening, her aggressive consumption and her inability to keep any sauce off her clothes and the relatively obscene noises she’s been making around her fork. The thought gives her some kind of vengeful delight.

Until she remembers that America’s still on the other end of this call. Cringes.  “Tell me something,” she says, clearing her throat through her embarrassment. Which—great, now she sounds like she’s thirteen, giggling through stupid twenty questions sleepover games. When there’s no immediate responds, she adds, “Are you still seeing Veronica Mars girl?”

“No,” she says. A pause, before, “Guess we hit our peak on the first date.”

“How many peaks are we talking?” Kate asks, vaguely pleased with herself. _Kate Bishop’s double entendre game on this fine Friday evening leaves all other competitors in the dust_.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” America says, and: oh.

*

“It’s 2:45,” Kate says, before America can.

“Looks like you’ve got adding by three down,” America says.

“Up next, long division!” she says, absurd and smiling. “No company tonight? Hot rebound action?” Not that it’s really a rebound if it’s one date, but, whatever. Isn’t there some stereotype about lesbians and moving vans?

“Just a phone that keeps ringing.” This time, Kate doesn’t even bother pretending at sorry. It’s never been her most Oscar-worthy performance.

Sometimes, all Kate does is talk. Sometimes she talks about Clint, and how stupid he is, or how much she hates her dad, or how messed up this creepy body double immortality is, or how Lucky’s the only thing that’s holding it all together.

Tonight, she says, “I miss you.”

Tonight, America says, “I know.”

When she wakes up, there’s sunlight streaming through the windows and there are minutes ticking away on the screen, a phone call she never ended.

She’s never been so damn relieved to have a phone that still has unlimited minutes.

(Before she hits end, she thinks about a girl, three thousand miles away, whose minutes are ticking away on the pillow beside her.)

*

“The waitlist is like an hour and a half long tonight and they _still_ let me in,” Kate says, as soon as Nicki abruptly stops blasting in her ear. “Are we sure _you’re_ not the warlock thing here? Loki didn’t pass along any of his magic to you, did he?”

She’s been calling her every time she shows up at the restaurant, in what is far less a desperate attempt at connection and far more the kind of phone conversation ordinary people have together. And if she has a standing single reservation for Friday, that’s—well, it’s how it worked out.

(And if one of the junior officers at the precinct she’s not supposed to visit suggested a Friday dinner, and she mentioned she already had plans—well, he was way too L.A., and his eyebrows were kind of a weird shape, anyway.) 

“You think I need anything from Loki?” America asks. “That kid could use some schooling.”

“Kid?” Kate asks, skeptically. “More like eternal god.”

“I know. And I can kick that god’s ass.”

“Yeah,” Kate concurs, “you can.”

“Chico says he’s hooking me up with some kind of magic multiverse phone, though,” America adds. “No ass-kicking required.” 

Kate wonders if she sounds disappointed. And then: “Oh, so it’ll work anywhere? Any universe?”

“Yeah,” America says. “Anywhere.”

* 

The buzzing on the counter catches her by surprise; she glances up from the paperwork spread across what little there is of the kitchen table, eyes narrowed.

The only reason she’s staring at contracts at midnight is because she’d been—barely—talked down from tracking her suspect to his house and banging on his door at midnight. Marcus said something about _evidence_ , and the only evidence there is stretches out on this table, couched in disclaimers and small print.

She’s a little more relieved than she’d willingly admit to stand up from the table and make a grab for her phone. Hell, if she’s lucky, maybe it’s the station calling ( _at midnight, Kate? You?_ ) to tell her—

“America?” she asks, startled into near-speechlessness. “What—" 

“Got a delivery,” America says.

Improbably, she opens the trailer door.

Impossibly, there is America, standing in front of her trailer in her jacket and her shorts and holding a pizza box that may or may not be Kate’s lifeline. “Hey,” America says.

“What…” she starts, again, but finally steps back enough to let her through. It’s a small entryway; when America slides past, Kate pretends she doesn’t feel like she’s suddenly got about a thousand pulse points.

Even worse is the fact that the place is a futzing disaster. It’s the first time she’s thought to be embarrassed about it in months, but suddenly all she can see is every empty container she’s left along the counter, every dirty pawprint Lucky’s tracked in, every stain she’s made on the table.

“Welcome to paradise,” she says, but America just pushes aside the empty containers and drops the pizza on the table. After a moment, Kate slides into the booth beside her, shoulders and elbows and thighs brushing. 

Lucky joins them immediately, whining and settling his chin on America’s knee. When she offers him his own piece, Kate says, “You’ll never get rid of him now. Meet your new best friend.”

America smiles a little, scratches him between his ears. After a moment, Kate adds, “What are you doing here?”

America meets her eyes, the imprint of her smile lingering. She lifts a shoulder. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“What’s the neighborhood?” Kate asks. “Earth?”

“Something like that,” America says with a laugh, but there’s something about it that makes her think she’s not quite—

She glances at the pizza box. “Wait,” she says. “This is—you didn’t get this from Earth, did you?”

“Earth,” she says, “just not Earth-Earth. Best pizza place I know.” And there’s this drop in Kate’s stomach, this shift of something inside her ribcage, this fluttering in the tips of her fingers, like her heart is pounding in all of them.

“Are you staying the night?” Kate asks, because it’s the first thing that comes out of her mouth.

America curls her fingers in the sleeves of her jacket, searches Kate’s face. Like she’s the one looking for an answer. So, instead of waiting, Kate just says, “Yes.”

“Okay,” America says, but her smile’s wide. Maybe that’s why Kate leans into her. Maybe it’s because there’s so little distance between them that all it takes is turning for their faces to be inches apart.

They’re both still smiling when Kate kisses America, and it doesn’t feel like a revelation. It feels like the _duh_ Kate’s been waiting for.

*

Kate wakes up to an empty bed and the buzz of her phone against the table.

 _Gone for pancakes. Be back soon_ , it reads. Beside the text sit the American flag emoji and the bullseye emoji.

 _Wait til everyone finds out Miss America is the sappiest Young Avenger,_ she texts back.

The response comes only a minute later—a selfie of America delightedly flipping her off, followed by: _And don’t forget it, princesa._

 _bring me my pancakes, sap,_ Kate types, followed by a kissy face emoji.

She plugs her phone into the speakers, turns  _Feeling Myself_ all the way up.


End file.
